


Etched in Lines

by james



Category: Dragaera - Steven Brust
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-25
Updated: 2015-11-25
Packaged: 2018-05-03 08:31:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5283881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/james/pseuds/james
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kiera the Thief becomes a part of Vlad's family, when he can't be there himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Etched in Lines

**Author's Note:**

  * For [digitalemur (dlemur)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dlemur/gifts).



> Thank you very much to K. for the beta!

When Vlad Norathar frowned, he looked exactly like his father. Kiera didn't know if Vlad himself would consider that a flattering comparison – she suspected he would have been the sort of father who would be proud of every single thing his son did, even when the toddler was destroying the artwork hanging above the fireplace, a spot which all the adults agreed should have been out of reach.

It hardly mattered, Kiera knew, since Cawti hadn't allowed any of them to try to send word to Vlad about the fact he had a son. But she felt – something – when she saw the boy frowning in concentration and all she could see was his father's visage etched in the lines of his face. It had been far too long since she had checked up on Vlad, too long since she'd had confirmation that he still lived. It was safest, she knew, for if she didn't know then certainly the Jhereg couldn't know, and that meant well for his continued existence.

She hadn't thought she had grown so fond of him, that so few years out of touch could make her anxious to go find him. For Vlad and for his family of equally short-lived Easterners the years would hold much more distance, but for _her_ it should have been the blink of an eye. So little time had really passed since she'd first found him, a mere boy hardly older than his son was now, working in his own father's restaurant. But then perhaps she'd simply grown accustomed to seeing Vlad whenever she liked, dropping in to touch base or simply listen to the gossip about the activities of one notorious Jhereg Easterner.

Vlad Norathar smacked his hand on his knee and crowed with delight. When he saw her looking, he pointed. "Red bird! On the corner of the rug." Dutifully she looked; she hardly needed to, but the boy found it reassuring when she looked to confirm he'd done it. Indeed, he had found the tiny red bird on the west-most corner of the rug upon which he sat.

Kiera nodded and smiled happily for him. "Excellent work! Do you want another?"

He nodded quickly, chubby cheeks fairly stretched with his self-satisfied grin. His hair needed another trim, Kiera saw, his bangs flopping almost down into his eyes. He made such a ruckus when anyone but Norathar tried, though, that they'd resigned to only cutting his hair when the Dragon Heir to the Throne could wield the shears. 

"Green flower," Kiera said without glancing about the room – he would take it as a clue, even if she looked nowhere near where the item was. She had cautioned him not to, but he seemed unable to help it – but then, he was only three and Kiera was willing to make allowances.

The boy immediately began looking around, grin vanishing as he concentrated. He stayed in his spot on the floor, moving only to turn slowly as he began to search the room without getting up to wander through it.

It was a game his mother tolerated, though she knew exactly what Kiera's motives were. Kiera would not have taught him other games, not yet – she'd taught Vlad a great deal of what Kiera the Thief had to share, but he had been older, old enough to not need lessons disguised as games. He'd already been doing the work of an adult and had more immediate need of such skills. But Vlad Norathar was barely an infant, and a well-protected one at that. He had no need to learn things that led to thieving and sneakery and worse. If he ever gained the desire to learn, Kiera would wait for him to be old enough to ask for lessons – and then she would carefully direct those requests to his mother who, it hardly need be said, was as capable as Kiera at teaching the boy what he might need to know.

But this game was safe enough. Teaching the boy his colors, teaching him to recognize different animals and objects and give them name, all with the added bonus of teaching him to observe and notice the tiniest detail. She hoped she could teach him to make his observations without giving himself away – the rule she'd made about sitting and not getting up while he searched was hard on him, but only because he had a natural tendency to move about, often at top speed, no matter what he was doing.

But he'd learned to sit quietly for as long as it took to play this game three or four times, twenty minutes at most, after which Kiera knew she would be best served to take him out to the back courtyard and let him run and climb and make a futile attempt to wear him out.

He was, all things considered, a rather easy child to take care of. The first time Kiera had said as such, Cawti had promptly dropped the boy in her arms and left, promising to return in two hours. It was not precisely Kiera's first time ever caring for what was then still a baby, though she could not clearly recall if she had ever cared for an Easterner infant. But babies were much the same across the species, to some extent. A few songs and a few hand-slapping games and one long, complicated story about his parents he was too young to follow or remember, and Kiera had survived the afternoon without complaint. It made her one of Vlad Norathar's regular babysitters, and since Cawti hardly let Vlad's Dragon friends near the boy, Kiera took every moment she could to spend time with his son.

It did not surprise her that Sethra Lavode had received no formal announcement of the child's birth nor received more than a cursory invitation to be introduced once he'd reached his sixth-month mark. She knew that Aliera and Morrolan had seen the child only a few times, though Cawti and Aliera had become friends, children were not a thing Aliera had much interest in. Kiera, however, was delighted to have reason to spend time with the boy, even if at first it was only for Vlad's sake.

Much as she wanted to tell Vlad about his son, she honored Cawti's command not to. Kiera agreed that if Vlad knew about the boy, he would risk his own life just to come back to Adrilankha to see him. Still, Kiera couldn't help but think he had a right to know, if only because it might give him comfort that something more than himself would survive all of this.

The boy in question was currently frowning hard, glaring at a painting he apparently felt should contain the green flower. It did not, and Kiera wasn't sure why he thought so, but she left him to his search, careful not to offer any cues should he glance her way. He looked so much like Vlad, frustrated and annoyed and, tellingly, unwilling to ask for any help.

He was allowed to ask for hints, Kiera had told him, a concession to his age. She could tell him which direction to face, or she would hold out her hand to show the object would be no higher or lower than indicated. He had asked for a hint once, then felt betrayed when she'd given him the help and he'd found the item immediately. Now he refused to ask and Kiera had more than once sat for fifteen full minutes, waiting for him to find the object she'd named. (It was, perhaps, the real reason Cawti tolerated the game. It was no less than a miracle to get the boy to sit still any other time.)

He was getting twitchy, now, needing to run around, but determined not to give in until he'd won the game. Keira smiled at how fierce his scowl had grown, knowing from the smell coming from the doorway that soon his mother would come and interrupt the game for lunch.

Indeed, a moment later Cawti stepped into the room, smiling as she saw her son. Kiera could see the shadow of sadness flicker across her face -- no doubt she, too, could see her husband's face in the toddler's furious scowl.

"All right, it's time for lunch," Cawti said gently.

For a moment Vlad Norathar didn't move, then suddenly he crowed, "I found it!" He leapt up and ran to the bookshelf, hand tapping on the spine of a book he knew well: the collection of children's fairy tales they read from before bed. The publisher's mark of a hanaa flower was there in green ink, stamped bold and large onto the leather. 

"Well done!" Kiera told him, even as he was leaping for his mother's arms. He was already babbling away at Cawti, telling her about each of the objects he had located and where in the room they had been. It quickly turned into a story about – Kiera wasn't certain, but there was a tsalmoth involved and a great flying blue something, which might have been a bird or might have been a small boy flying with magic.

Cawti was well familiar with her son's tale-telling and Kiera left it to her to make the appropriate encouraging inquires. Kiera might consider him easy enough to look after, but following the boy's logic made her head hurt.

For a moment she caught a mental image of Vlad, holding his son the way Cawti was now, listening intently to his story. He would ask questions, poke the story along and give his son the whole of his attention while the story was told. 

She wondered, not for the first time, if Vlad would ever have the chance to meet his son. There was no way to know, but for now, Kiera did what she could. She watched and she stored the memories carefully away, so if the day came she could tell Vlad anything at all, she would have a host of her own stories to tell him about his son.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] Etched in Lines](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11985672) by [idellaphod](https://archiveofourown.org/users/idellaphod/pseuds/idellaphod)




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